My view on exercise progression

    My favourite form of progression is to increase the weight. For that reason that is why the barbell is my favourite tool. And also for that reason i find it impossible for me to train only at home as i will not have access to alot of equipment. Granted, lack of equipment is no excuse for not training. But hey, i train consistently every week! So i am not making excuses, i am just stating my preferences. I mean, think about it. Firstly, in order to reach whatever goal there must be some kind of progression in your training. You can only progress with reps to a certain extent only. Eventually you have to figure out how to make the exercise more difficult. And yes, this can be quite a hassle.

    Lets take a barbell squat for example. You are able to take baby steps in increasing the weight by using 2.5 lb plates or even better, 1 lb fractional plates. By doing so the progression will be more linear and doable for every training session. Imagine if you were to train with no proper implements at home and assuiming doing bodyweight squats is like a walk in the park. To progress with reps, you would have to do tons of reps. And after a certain rep benchmark you will not benefit much from the exercise anymore. Not to mention they are time consuming, and boring. Why would you want to do 200 bodyweight squats again? 5-10 reps of heavy ass squats are definitely more efficient and beneficial. Sure, a certain level of endurance is necessary but there are alot of routes that are better picked than doing hundreds of reps.

                                                I said make the exercise harder, not stupid!


     Lets take another form of progression which is to make the exercise harder. "Hey i can squat 50 times with both legs, i should be able to squat 25 with a single leg right"? (Okay i admit, this is an extreme case scenario). A transition from bodyweight squats to single leg squats is no joke. Single leg squats require a great amount of flexibility and not to mention tremendous core stability to perform a single rep. Well lets see my choice of progression which is increasing the weight. To do so at home would require you to use unmodifiable home implements like water kegs, rice bags, etc of which make weight progression really impractical.

                                        After a while of doing pullups, you will be this strong

   Do you see where i am going with this? I am not here to suggest that without going to the gym you cannot achieve your goals. But i do believe it is much easier and simpler. And i also believe after some time training and you have accrued a decent strength base, spending some time in the weight room would really do wonders. Also when i state "weight room" i do not mean that you should dump all your bodyweight exercises. You would keep them. In fact, you HAVE to keep them. Another point to make here is that every training style has its place. And bodyweight training is definitely a useful arsenal. If you choose to train at home exclusively, invest in some home friendly equipment like bands, adjustable dumbbells, gymnastic rings, etc to make sure the possibilities of being creative in an exercise are endless.

    

   

   

To hell with your excuses

    Excuses are excuses. Even if you have the ability to make them sound "smarter" they are still not warranted. For example, there is no difference in saying "my body just cannot lose fat" or "i am an endomorph, i cannot do anything about it" although on first blush the latter sounds more reasonable.

    I used to be a proponent in making excuses, but as i learn from making countless mistakes and self searching (eee poyonya) i find that the only one to be blamed is not your ancestors (for the genetics), your friends, or your family members. It is yourself. You can make a choice. I used to blame my rare case of crooked fingers to my lack of grip strength when i deadlift. I just used it as an excuse and jmped to conclusion that I am just not cut for deadlifting. Then i realised whining did not get me anywhere, so i decided to fix it. After doing plate holds, kroc rows, and thick bar lifts my grip strength did not hold me back anymore.

                                   I actually googled images on "self searching" and this came up


    So what if you have a great tendency to be fat compared to your skinny ectomorph friend that you envy so much? Too bad, monitor your food intake. So what if you do not have the flexibility to squat? too bad, get flexible. So what if you cannot bench heavy because you have weak triceps? Too bad, do more tate presses and close grip bench presses. Take these incapabilities as warnings that something is wrong with your body and you have to do something about it. This is definitely a good thing. You will know your body better and you will find out what works for you and what doesn't. It is called self experimenting. Anthony Mychal wrote a great post on this one. Compare yourself to those who are blessed with awesome genetics (envy put aside, and i do not mean all of them, but ALOT of them) who never had to go through all these mistakes or being called off by any of the alarms mentioned above. They have very few mistakes to learn from.

                                      Too bad you do not have the same genetics as this dude

    Okay enough ranting(Sabar Yannick, sabar). The point is, suck it up and live with it. If you have to do extra work, do not complain about it. The measure of how much you want something is determined by your actions. If you are just complaining without doing anything, i take it as you do not want it that much.

Intermittent fasting for life

    If you have been an avid reader on fitness materials for the past 6 months or so you must have came across the topic of intermittent fasting (IF). It simply means fasting for an extended period of time. The concept is not entirely new but the craze bloomed recently. The fuss came to my knowledge after reading John Berardi's 8 month self experiment on IF. He got tremendous results. He also enjoyed it. He dropped his bodyfat level from a reasonably lean 10% bodyfat to a very very lean 4% bodyfat. For further detail, click here.The 32-36 hour fast, the 24 hour fast, 16/8 method, and the warrior diet are among the well known ones. A few years back i had lived on warrior diet for about 5 months. I lost alot of fat, but i could have done better if i monitored my nutrition accordingly and followed a better training method. And considering i am an endo-mesomorph, i should have done cardio as well.

    But recently John Romaniello, an expert on fat loss, together with Dan Go, also a fat loss guru, came up with a fat loss nutrition program that incorporates IF called Fat Loss Forever (FLF). As the name implies, this program is not a "diet"program where you go on for 3 weeks or 6 weeks or 12 weeks but it shall be committed as a lifestyle. It is called habit. Mark the word, HABIT. No one is going anywhere without it. As a sucker for good programs and not to mention im a huge fan of his work, of course i bought it! I am going to start this Monday. Currently im on a program called Rampage 2.0, written by Jason Ferruggia. Im on my final phase and will be finishing it in 3 weeks. After that i plan to start a  6 week fat loss training program also written by John Romaniello called Final Phase Fat Loss (FPFL). Money well spent. Boo-yeah.

My personal take on supplements

    I have met alot of people of whom their takes on supplements are divided into two. At the right corner, they feel that they cannot make it without supplements. At the other corner they feel that supplements suck, all of them! So are supplements bad? Or is it just people taking them are stupid?In my previous posts i have mentioned the danger of being on either polar opposites or being in a position at risk to be streotyped as hardcore. S

    If you ask me, i love supplements! they are easy, convenient, some do taste good, very portable, no need to worry about freshness and they require less chewing. For example, with one scoop of protein you can get roughly 20-25 grams of protein. Add a cup of milk, a tablespoon of peanut butter, frozen spinach (you can barely taste them), and a piece of fruit you are getting a delicious, high protein, a decent amount of good fat and also high fibre protein shake. Personally, i do not like to chew my post workout snack. And also due to time constraints and uncertainty of availability for gym time, i do not wish to worry about preparing solid meals and carrying them around to class. Furhtermore they taste funny after being confined in a tupperware for a long time.

                                                              Match made in heaven

    And there are some supplements that just cannot be replaced by food. For example, you would have to eat a ton of salmon to get the same amount of omega 3 in just a few fish oil capsules. Not to mention that salmon is freakingly expensive. And in alot of situations, supplements can be alot cheaper than whole foods. A 10 lb 100% whey from Optimum nutrition is around rm290 on average, with 150 servings. One scoop has 24 grams of protein. Simple math equates one serving costs around rm1.95 per serving. For me to get an equal amount of protein with that price is nearly impossible. Even if i can the preparation required in making sure it is edible is just not worth it.

                                               Freakingly good, but freakingly expensive


    Different coaches have different takes on supplements and what do they consider necessary. But generally, a basic protein powder, fish oil, creatine monohydrate, greens supplements, and a workout drink are the ones agreed upon. None of that N.O or  fancy creatine bullcrap.

                                              He looks better than most of us, even unshaved


    All that being said, i am not here to say that supplements can replace food. Proper nutrition is the foundation. You will get nowhere without having a decent base. Supplements are what they are, they are...just supplements! But they can be pretty helpful. However, you can do it without them. If you happen to love chicnken breast and rice for post workout, then what is stoping you? And if you love the taste of leavy greens so much that you do not feel like a chore chewing them endlessly then please, help yourself! Hey, we do not live in a perfect world. So if you are missing out on supplements, do not make it as if it is the end of the world and you have to stop training. Oldtimers like Vince Gironda, John Grimek, Reg Park, and Steve Reeves could do it. And in fact, they look much better than the suplement bitches. You just gotta know how will they help you instead of following some tagline with lots of exclamation marks on some bodybuilding supplement ad.

Search "hardcore"

    I am not pretty sure i know what hardcore is, with the regard that hardcore is something positive and awesome. But i am pretty sure i know what is not hardcore. And the supposedly hardcore cults are growing, giving the real hardcore fitness corps a bad name.

                                          Trust me, you do not want to piss these people off


    With "hardcore" fitness websites bashing the commercial gyms endlessly, some people are preventing themselves really hard from losing their "hardcoreness". For example, there is nothing wrong with an air-conditioned gym. In fact, i love training in one. But hey, that is not testosterone-ish right? That atmosphere does not mimic what is shown on an animal pak poster right? And since when music plays such an important role? I am sure to a certain extent it does, but in that case any music will do. Yeah, i have heard that music with heavy beats and frying guitar sounds elevates your heart rate bla3 but hey, if i hate that kind of music and it will leave me irritated and annoyed as long as i am at the gym, logically it would be as productive as it seems, right?

                                  Dust: check. Scraped walls:check.  Rusty plates: check  "-_-"

 
    And then we move to the exercises. Have you ever asked yourself why are you doing them? Will it help you in achieving your goals? Do you secretly want huge guns but you are afraid of being judged  by doing those productive isolation movemnents and perform squats and deadlifts instead. Hey, do not get me wrong, i love squats and deads as much as a powerlifter does, but i would not be spending  time on them as much if i know they would not help me reach my goals. Want a a V shaped torso, you say? Do pullups and pulldowns. No, not just pullups, and not just pulldowns, but do both. Oh wait but cable exercises are not manly right?

    And wow talk about the attitude hardcore people are supposed to have. You gotta grunt your way from the entrance of the gym to the deadlift platform right? Gotta build some serious mental "tuff"ness yo. Oh yeah and trash talking is compulsory. Forget courtesy and manners, they dont belong in the weightroom. F words should be used as much as "I".

    As much as these people hate being stereotyped, but they are are proving the stereotypor ( I am not sure if that is even a valid word) right every single time. I personally believe hardcore means training smartly, consistently, passionately and dedicatedly and achieving your goals, without giving a slightest shit of what people think. Goals are personal, no one wants it as much as you do. If you are doing the right thing, who is laughing now?And if you can achieve them in a less than "hardcore" environment and you are happy doing so, what is stopping you? As long as you have done paying your dues in the gym, you deserve to ogle a bit at the chicks on the treadmills. Or better still, they might be ogling at you (kidding).
  

"Fitness" declassified

    Ive heard about it multiple times. There are variations of it but they all come from a myth i do not know who invented it. "I go to the gym not to lift weights, but for fitness like walking on the treadmill or cycle on the stationery bike". This variation i just mentioned is a paraphrased version of mine to make the line sound smarter. Trust me, you do not want to know the exact line. This shows that people do not even have a basic grasp of fitness.

    In the Oxford Dictionary, fitness (noun) is defined as the condition of being phisically fit and healthy. The other definition, also under the same dictionary defines fitness as the quality of being suitable to fulfil a particular role or task.

    By way of the first definition, people always think that being able to run 10 miles non stop is the benchmark of fitness and health. based on their logic endurance trumps power, strength, and other qualities. wouldnt being able to squat. Isn't having appreciable amount of muscle mass healthy?Isn't being able to sprint with perfect mechanics show you are fit?Or simply being able to pick up loaded box off the floor without rounding your back for that matter? What i am trying to say is that lifting weights has always got a bad rep. They stunt the growth, they make you slow, they are bad for your spine are among the tabloid speculations on strength training. Lifting weights burn fat, build muscle, strengthen your bones, and makes you more flexible, yes, u heard the last one right. Isn't that what everyone is after?

                                           Can you perform this functional task, injury free?

    By way of the second definition, the meaning of fitness is narrowed down to what are you trying to accomplish. For example, sprints need to sprint alot, weightlifters need to perform hours of cleans and snatches, or marathoners need to jog long distances. This also mean that if a weightlifter run 10 miles everyday he would be wasting his time as he is not building his fitness towards his sport. Thus being unfit for his sport.

                                 This guy does not have to jog long distances, nor does he want to

                                    Trust me, you do not get to look like this with only jogging

   For the non athlete, you might be interested either to lose fat, build muscle, build strength, or simply being healthy. So do not confine yourself to the illusion that jogging is the only way to be awesome. Unless you are training for a marathon or a specific sport you can always be fit and healthy by lifting weights, running sprints, or paying sports. I have nothing against jogging as seriously it is better than how an average Malaysian spends his evening. But just know what you want and how to achieve it.

Form, injury, and unsuitable references

     I gotta admit, exercises such as squats, olympic lifts and deadlifts look more hardcore and dangerous than sports such as football and basketball. They appear like a ticking bomb to a cracked spine or a slipped disc. And then there are evidences to support the contention that they are dangerous on Youtube that show jacked guys getting pinned by a loaded barbell while benching or an olympian's shoulders get dislocated while the barbell is at mid air. Then the average guy goes "shit man if it is possible for an experienced lifter it hell be more possible for me".

    Martin Rooney puts it best in one of his articles and i quote,"Reading is bad for the eyes, door handles are caked with germs, and pesticides are sprayed on virtually every stitch of produce at the grocery store. Are you going to stop reading, opening doors, and eating vegetables?". These show that there is an inherent risk in everything you do. I consider those who choose to lift weights are smart enough to understand this and therefore they will learn the proper execution of every lift. Bret Contreras wrote an article on this whole paranoia about risky and bad exercises and it is one of my favourite articles.

    The next question that is logically asked is how do i learn proper form? Where do i learn proper form? Obviously there are tons of established, well known, bible ranked books that you can refer to. You cannot go wrong with "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe. This book details everything you need to know about form and it also explains if you have granny form. Or any book that contains training programs will give you a brief direction of how the exercise is executed.

                                         You gotta be this awesome to deadlift with this form
                                        
    However, I do understand that you need a more live and moving visual assistance. This is where most of us will resort to Youtube (assuming we already ruled out has been pakciks and skinny bastards doing twists at the gym). The problem i have with this is that some videos are not suitable for technique learning. For example, never copy a deadlift form of a powerlifter. They have trained long enough to round their upper backs while maintaining the arch of their lower back. Another example is a video i watched Arnold doing bent over rows. Instead of maintaining that arch al the time, he lowers the barbell way lower than usual while rounding his back. He was lucky not to slip a disc.

     There are proper videos on Youtube showing techniques on exercises. Choose wisely. With constant practice and experience you are all set. I have been lifting for a few years and my form is still improving.